May 28th, 2024

By Kyo Lee, Grade 11 student in the WRDSB

The Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) announced our 2024-2025 Student Trustees: Devansh Lakhanpal and Feiyang Luo.

Devansh and Feiyang were chosen by WRDSB students in the February election where over 4,000 votes were cast. They both shared that they feel honoured to serve the WRDSB student body and are excited to fulfil their roles when they officially step into the position of Student Trustees in September 2024.

Platforms

Feiyang is passionate about delaying school start time by an hour. After listening to his fellow students’ concerns in Grade 10, he signed up to be a delegate at one of WRDSB’s meetings to convey his message to the Board of Trustees. This year, Feiyang decided to run for Student Trustee “so I could be in the position to work with the Trustees [consistently].”

Devansh aims to make payment terminals available for schools to make it easier for students to participate in school events. Additionally, he hopes to organise inter-school activities, such as a board wide basketball tournament. Devansh explained it’s his hope to connect students across schools and make “WRDSB itself feel more like a community.”

The incoming Student Trustees are also planning to create monthly feedback forms so that students who are unable to attend roundtable meetings can still provide their input.

To our new Student Trustees, being in this role means being the voice for students. Devansh notes that “adult trustees have student interests at their heart,” but their job is hard when they “don’t have student voices directly coming to [them].” Devansh explained this is why we need Student Trustees, who are “in a position to be involved in the student community and bring those voices and concerns to the Board.”

Learning opportunity

Devansh and Feiyang are feeling prepared for their roles, but they know that it will also be a learning experience. Devansh is interested in science, especially physics and biology while Feiyang is looking toward social sciences such as philosophy and theology. While their academic interests are different, they agree that the Student Trustee role will equip them with transferable skills useful in any future endeavours such as time management, collaboration and listening to and interacting with diverse perspectives in service to those who elected them.

Inspiration

While the two incoming Student Trustees share strong leadership skills and a commitment to improving student lives their journeys to this point have been different.

Feiyang acquired the motivation to run for Student Trustee through his experiences at his secondary school’s Student Activities Council and Asian Student Union (ASU). The ASU helped shape Feiyang’s systemic and policy-focused approaches. “[Leading the ASU] drove me to find ways to integrate change through policy,” said Feiyang. “It’s what affects most people and the prerequisite to achieving change.”

Devansh was inspired by one of the 2023-2024 Student Trustees Abdullah Awan, his friends and his leadership teacher Ms. Bennett, who he looks up to for her quality to “connect everybody.” Devansh also mentions that while doing Grade 9 online was challenging, entering physical high school in Grade 10 and witnessing other students “having so much fun” motivated him to get involved in the school community.

Advice

For any students wanting to get involved in their school community at any level, our future Student Trustees have insightful advice. Devansh suggests, “Put yourself out there. Express[ing] yourself is not only important for your own mental health, but [it also] helps your community be the best it can be.” While it can be scary to step out of your comfort zone, he says that “especially in our schools…it is very easy from 64,000 students that someone will be on your side.”

Feiyang adds that in order to make “putting yourself out there” practical for himself, he speaks with new people every day.” He recalls joining Student Activities Council in Grade 9, expressing that “it was frightening;” however, it has actually helped him “be proud of what I’m doing” and “not afraid to speak out on issues that are vital to helping students.” For anyone wanting to make change in their communities, Feiyang says, “Find people who agree with your ideas, make some friends…and go as hard as you can.”

Our Student Trustees are ready and enthusiastic to represent us at the board level. In their own words, they’re “excited to be [our] voice.”

#StudentVoice Series

This article is written by a WRDSB student and is part of the Student Agency and Voice program. Student journalists embody WRDSB’s commitment to creating space for students to tell their stories. They are ambassadors for their peers as they share their personal experiences and stories about their schools and communities in their unique voices.